Left: Nick Frost and Simon Pegg in "The World's End"
Although I wanted to do a top
ten list for 2013, it was weird a year for me. The truth is that I don’t even know if I have
ten movies I want to talk about—while I’m pretty sure I saw ten or more films
this past year, I don’t have much to say about forgettable flicks like “The
Wolverine” or “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2,” and I have nothing to add
to the discussions about attention-getters like “12 Years a Slave.”
However,
I do have a few movies I want say something about, so here we go:
Pacific
Rim
Guillermo Del Toro is a weird
sort of filmmaker: someone with art house credentials who also loves
blockbusters and genre work. Only he
could make “Pacific Rim” and I’m glad for it.
Why? In part because it’s a movie about internationality
and global cooperation that means it. Not
only does the story revolve around an alien menace being fought off by an
American-Japanese tag-team, an Australian father-son duo, a Chinese triple-act,
and a Russian married couple, but these disparate heroes act under the
leadership of a black Briton operating out of a Hong Kong base using a
Russian-provided nuke. His support
team? A Chinese-American technician, two
scientists (one American, one British, both with German surnames), and an
American criminal based in China.
It’s
thanks to this diversity that in the end, “Pacific Rim” is a movie about wildly
different people setting old grudges aside, coming together, and forming
personal connections with one another with one noble goal in mind: to make
giant robots punch giant monsters in the face. So, yeah, it’s a brilliant movie.
The
Wolf of Wall Street
Much has been made of this
film’s purported celebration of Jordan Belfort’s life of swindling, fraud,
fortune, and wretched excess. But while
some believe that Martin Scorsese’s movie idolizes Belfort, it actually
succeeds because it makes no pretext about its real-life source material: throughout
the film, Belfort’s life of cocaine-fueled pool parties and orgies on private jets
is made to look like a lot of fun, as it probably was.
Of
course, Belfort himself was a lying, selfish, greedy, and a borderline
sociopath, a man whose pursuit of profit put his family and his friends in
life-threatening danger (early in the film, Belfort rationalizes his scheming
by saying that he deserves to have his clients’ money because he knows how to
spend it better. Needless to say, he’s
not an especially likable person). But
“Wolf” is still a great movie and you should absolutely go see it.
Pain
and Gain
Everyone goes through life
believing in certain absolute truths: A is A, the sky is blue, bacon is
delicious, and, of course, that Michael Bay makes terrible movies. And yet because of Mr. Bay’s “Pain and Gain,”
that last has changed. Maybe it’s
because this movie lacks the turgid ambition of the director’s abominable
“Transformers” trilogy, or maybe it’s because Mr. Bay cares more about
psychotic body builders more than he cares about toy cars that turn into toy
robots.
But whatever
the reason, “Pain and Gain” is a highly enjoyable pitch-black comedy, one that
features a relatively small set of circumstances trumped up by the ludicrous
places its characters go. It may be a
sleazier, less slick cousin to “The Wolf of Wall Street,” but it’s still a
blast to watch, not least because of Dwayne Johnson’s performance as Paul Doyle,
an earnest, simple kidnapper blessed by Jesus with the gift of “knocking
someone the f*(& out.”
Man
of Steel
“Man of Steel” is a mixed bag.
On the one hand, its actors all bring
their A-game (particularly Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, and
Russell Crowe); on the other hand, there’s the script. On the one hand, director Zack Snyder has a
fantastic eye for imagery and effects that makes the film’s faded color pallet
work; on the other hand, there’s the script. On the one hand, the film takes the idea of
Superman as a modern mythical figure seriously; on the other hand, it features
a messy, convoluted, humorless, poorly paced, and overindulgent script.
So
“Man of Steel” isn’t a particularly good movie.
Yet I do appreciate that it forced me to think about what does and
doesn’t make a good Superman story. Indeed, Mr. Snyder’s film helped me gain new respect
for other, better tales of the last son of Krypton, particularly the 2005 comic
book series “All-Star Superman,” which acts as a polar opposite to “Man of
Steel”: optimistic instead of morose, colorful instead of drab, human instead
of messianic. What’s more, the comic
possesses a compelling simplicity that the film lacks—whereas “Man of Steel”
bends over backwards to explain the basic mechanics of General Zod, the Phantom
Zone, and the Fortress of Solitude, “All-Star Superman” provides a satisfying two-sentence
explanation for one of its monsters (“It’s called a Chronovore. It eats time.”)
and lets the story go from there.
That
said, I’m not going to demand that DC/WB make exact translations of their
comics or that all Superman stories should be the same tonally. But for heaven’s sake, would it have killed them
if someone in their movie had cracked a damn smile?
Star
Trek Into Darkness
This is your reminder that
“Star Trek Into Darkness” ends with Dr. Leonard McCoy synthesizing a cure for
death. He cured death. He took Khan’s magic “super blood” and did
science stuff to it and he brought dead Jim Kirk back to life. So from now on, death is no longer a threat in
the “Star Trek” universe because Bones McCoy found a cure for it. Just thought you’d all like to remember it.
Also,
did anyone else want a scene where Old Spock asks why Khan is suddenly a white
dude? That would’ve been funny.
An
Adventure in Time and Space
TV movies count! In honor of the 50th anniversary
of the initial airing of “Doctor Who” in 1963, the BBC created this little film
dramatization of the first three years of the show’s run. The result of their efforts is a humble,
sweet movie that delves into the love and passion felt for a goofy little
science-fiction show, particularly by series producer Verity Lambert (Jessica
Raine), series director Waris Hussein (Sacha Dwahan), and lead actor William
Hartnell (David Bradley). Of course, the
movie is especially focused on Hartnell and how “Doctor Who” not only
revitalized his career, but gave him an audience he never thought he’d have—a
development that allows Mr. Bradley to bring forth the character’s curmudgeonly
and warm sides.
In the
end, there are some historical facts that are fun to see play out in the
flick. Yet “An Adventure in Time and
Space” is really more about emotion than it is about details, and also how much
a show can mean to the people involved with it, even if it’s a show with cheap
sets and silly robot. As such, the story
reminds us of the importance of putting passion into your work, and that’s
something I can get behind any day of the week.
Much
Ado About Nothing
Remember this? This was a thing. It was a pretty good thing, too.
The
World’s End
If there’s one thing you
should know about me, it’s this: I. F*(&ING.
LOVE. EDGAR. WRIGHT.
With “Spaced,” “Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot
Fuzz,” and “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” he’s a director with a damn near
perfect track record of films that blend of refined filmmaking technique,
genre-film adoration, and surprisingly ripe subtext. Just
look at “Shaun” and “Pilgrim,” which are both about man-children forced to
embrace adulthood in the midst of extraordinary circumstances (a zombie
apocalypse in the former, video game-style brawls in the latter).
Taking
a different course than those films, “The World’s End” serves as a sort of
companion piece to “Hot Fuzz,” mainly because it peels back the curtain on
British small town nostalgia. And yet the
two films are starkly different, particularly because of lead actor (and
co-writer) Simon Pegg’s performance. In
“World’s End,” Mr. Pegg (who filled the role of the straight man in “Fuzz”) goes
against expectations by playing Gary King, a forty-year-old addict so blinded
by nostalgia that he still dresses and acts like his 18-year-old self. But by the film’s (and the world’s) end, Mr.
Pegg is forced to take his character to some dark places, and he doesn’t miss a
beat in the process.
It’s
because of this journey and more that “The World’s End” is exactly the kind of
movie I love: fun, funny, smarter than it needs to be, and a clear labor of
love—one that easily takes the top spot as my favorite film of 2013.
So
that’s my list. Hope you had a good 2013
and here’s looking forward to 2014, a year living Legos, funny cowboys, and
talking raccoons from space.
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